NSW launches Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program as part of Apps4NSW

The NSW government has launched the Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program to provide access to NSW transport routes, timetables and stop/station/wharf information for download and reuse in third party applications.

It's been provided as part of the data available for the Apps4NSW competition. launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere.

Unlike similar initiatives in the US and UK, which have generally employed Creative Commons licenses, the NSW Transport Authority has released the data contingent to users signing on to a specific data licensing agreement (PDF), providing the government with significantly more control over how the data may be used and who by.

As an initial step it is great to see the NSW government attempting to free up public data, although the current license agreement may restrict some usage.

For example, the license requires that there be someone eligible and willing to legally sign such an agreement. This could cause developers to think twice before signing on. It could also limit participation by young programmers and school students if their parents and schools are concerned over entering into this formal binding legal agreement with the NSW government.

The license also requires that licensees show their application to the Transport Authority at least 30 days before the application goes live. This reduces the ability for licensees to develop emergency applications at short notice to address specific events - such as fires, floods or other disasters (even dust storms).

There's also a requirement to update applications when the Department updates data, which could also present issues to those mashing up data for fun or experience. It seems to be aimed at companies who choose to mashup the data.

The comments I've seen published on Twitter include:

matthewlandauer: Not impressed with the NSW transport data license http://is.gd/3w1iL especially section 6: Release to the public. #gov2au

NickHodge: @trib @chieftech @matthewlandauer someone is scared about transparency in NSW public transport, me thinks :-(

malcolmt: Sad. Epic Fail by NSW gov with public transport timetable data license. This word Open, it does not mean what you think it means.

dasfreak: First NSW Gov open data effort starting with transport data. License on the whole OK. Reporting section bit onerous http://bit.ly/ehlj2

Overall this is a step forward for government openness, and in many respects a large step - particularly from NSW Transport's position in March, where it was actively pursuing developers with threats of legal action.

However it is only one step along a very long road.

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Gov 2.0 Taskforce announces launch of data.australia.gov.au with a Mash-up competition

The Gov 2.0 Taskforce this afternoon announced the launch of data.australia.gov.au featuring 59 datasets from Australian Federal, State and Territory governments released under licenses that permit reuse.

Alongside the launch the Taskforce announced on their blog the launch of a Mash-up competition challenging Australian developers to use one of more of the datasets to create a useful online application.

The competition is offering more than $20,000 in prizes across a range of categories including Excellence in mash-up, peoples' choice and Best Student entry.

The competition starts at 10am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on 7 October and closes at 4pm AEST on 6 November.

Solo entrants must be Australian resident or citizen and teams must include at least one Australian.

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Community based budgeting being trialled by a NSW Local MP

Community-based budgeting is an approach that involves a government allowing its constituents to nominate how some or all of the government's budget is spent in either a binding or non-binding manner.

It's not a new approach - in fact it's been used for thousands of years in different forms around the world.

What is reasonably new is using online tools to facilitate the process. This has been used successfully in various places around the world, (including Brazil) including at local council level in Australia.

However, for the first time that I'm aware of in Australia, the approach is about to be trialled at a state government level in NSW by Heathcote MP Paul McLeay.

The approach was announced via his website with a video, which details how the process will work.

It has also been the subject of a post by Paul at ON LINE Opinion titled, Web 2.0: citizens choose how to spend public money.

The article attracted criticism from the Sydney Morning Herald over the authors' choice of words regarding the Premier of NSW's use of Twitter. However it should also be noted that the quote was misattributed as only being from MP Paul McLeay, not from all of the authors, and the Herald didn't mention the point of the initiative in the first place.

However the experiment in edemocracy has attracted more positive views from others who have focused on the initiative, such as from Online Community Engagement's post Paul McLeay's e-democracy initiative - 3 cheers from us but the Herald is not impressed!.

I often wonder how the Australian public would prefer to spend 'government' budgets - the money that taxpayers give to the government to be used in their benefit.

Even with the understanding that the community won't have all the same information on which to make their decisions it would still make an interesting experiment to see the choices they make and the reasons behind their decisions.

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Crowdsourcing Australian History using Web 2.0

Nick Gruen over at the Gov 2.0 Taskforce has reminded me of a project I took a look at last year but have never mentioned in this blog.

It's the National Library of Australia's Historic Australian Newspapers archive, which contains digitalised versions of Australian newspapers from between 1803 and 1954 (which are not covered by copyright).

The archive began with the intention of using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to digitalise the newspapers to make them accessible and searchable online - a vital resource for researchers and geneologists.

However the project took this a step further - allowing the public to correct OCR mistakes in text with extremely low barriers to entry.

This led to over 2 millions lines of text being corrected in 100,000 articles in the first six months, with corrections undertaken by 1,300 users from around the world (78% from Australia). In fact there wasn't a single hour in a day when corrections were not taking place - and there were no instances of vandalism.

The IT Project Manager, Rose Holley has written a great report on the project, detailing how the crowdsourcing initiative was suggested, the process they used to understand and manage potential risks, test and establish the system and how successful it has been - including profiles of some of the top participants and what motivates them to contribute.

This report, Many Hands Make Light Work: Public Collaborative OCR Text Correction in Australian Historic Newspapers (PDF), is a must-read for anyone in the Australian public sector considering how they can get the public involved in their online initiative.

The project is ongoing - with more than 2,294 registered users in February this year.

So why not get involved yourself - even just to understand how such a system might work.

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NSW trialing video Hansards and auto-translation - looking for comments

As discussed in NSW MLC Penny Sharpe's blog last week, the NSW government is trialling video Hansard for proceedings in both NSW houses.

Videos are tagged via the Hansard transcripts to improve searchability - though at present the search system implemented finds the video clip, but not the precise time within the video.

In addition to the video, NSW is also trialling auto-translation of Hansard transcripts into Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish (though unfortunately not Klingon). This offers the exciting prospect of being able to provide the discussions in parliament in the languages of some of the different cultural groups across Australia. In my view this is even more significant for supporting Australia's multi-cultural democracy than watching parliament in action.

To trial the system, go to www.visionbytes.tv and login using nswparl as both the username and password.

If you have feedback, please comment on MLC Penny Sharpe's blog.

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